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Directed by Vincente Minnelli in 1956 based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Irving Stone, this docudrama depicts the life of Vincent van Gogh.
Energetic and profoundly emotional, Kirk Douglas's superb performance captures the ecstasy of art and the agony of the painter's life.
It is a heartwrenching and profoundly inspiring biopic that would remain in your mind for long.

The agony of one man's life.... Vincent Van Gogh painted the way other men breathe.

After Rembrandt, Van Gogh is considered to be the greatest of all the Dutch painters. His obsession with painting, combined with serious mental illness, propelled him through a life full of failures and unrewarding relationships.

Throughout his life, Van Gogh managed to earn some respect from his fellow painters, especially that of Paul Gauguin, but he never, ever got along with any of these men. Surprisingly enough, in his entire lifetime Van Gogh only managed to sell just one of his paintings.

Released in 1956 - "Lust For Life" is a really fine movie-production. Many of the locations used for filming were actual places that Van Gogh had visited during his short life. Actor, Kirk Douglas puts in a dynamite performance as the archetypical tortured artist-genius.

I thought Kirk Douglas did an amazing job portraying a cleaned up version of Van Gogh. Maybe overacting a tad but if he was going for an impulsive and manic artist vibe, he pulled it off. Van Gogh's paintings are surprisingly blissfully optimistic for such a tortured soul, with the exception of his self portraits. Interesting about Van Gogh's failed ministry at the start.

Vincente Minnelli’s cinemascope biopic on the tortured life of artist Vincent van Gogh is based on Irving Stone’s novel of the same name. In one of his signature performances, Kirk Douglas traces the evolution of Holland’s most famous son as he goes from frustrated evangelist to impassioned painter increasingly frustrated with his inability to break down that “iron door” separating what he perceives from what he is able to portray on canvas. Douglas’ animated performance shows us a man of great genius—and great pain—who struggled to express his impressions of light, colour, and texture with oils and paintbrush. With cleverly constructed sets and location shots along the coasts of Holland, Belgium, and France, Minnelli brings the master’s works to literal life as we see his paintings juxtaposed with the actual forests, buildings, and sun-drenched wheat fields which inspired them—apparently the director had one section of a field spray-painted so that its colour would more closely match Van Gogh’s work. With a narrator reading Vincent’s letters to his brother, as well as some intensely staged exchanges between the fiery Dutchman and the equally volatile Gauguin, Minnelli offers us the briefest of glimpses into the working of an artistic soul—a feat not easily accomplished using the medium of film.

Appears factually correct re details of his life, but Kirk Douglas is a rather more muscular and energetic Vincent than is believable. Not his fault, he was a big star at the time and this is a well-made movie, just miscast in my opinion and that rather spoiled it. Great eye candy, technicolour serves the paintings well.

Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn deliver the goods in their respective portrayals of Van Gogh and Gauguin. The movie was a little bland, but watchable. Interesting Wikipedia info states that, unlike the sanitized '50s depiction of Vincent's self-mutilation, after confronting Gauguin with a razor blade, he left in a panic and fled to a local brothel. (He often visited prostitutes.) While there, he cut off parts of his left ear, probably his left earlobe and some more. He wrapped the severed ear in newspaper and gave it to a prostitute. Also, some proposed diagnoses of the cause of the lonely soul's mental illness include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, syphilis, poisoning from ingesting paints, temporal lobe epilepsy, and acute intermittent porphyria. Any of these potential culprits could have been aggravated by negative factors of his lifestyle, namely, malnutrition, overwork, insomnia, and consumption of alcohol (especially absinthe, to which he had an affinity).

Quotes

Paul Gauguin: "What's all this talk about Arlesian women? I haven't seen a good one yet." Vincent Van Gogh: "They must've heard you were coming and they locked them up. ...Ah, wait'll you see, Paul, there's something about them... The way they carry themselves; even, even the old ones. A certain classic grace and dignity." Paul Gauguin: "Dignity--I'm talkin' about women, man--WOMEN... I like 'em fat and vicious and not too smart. Nothing spiritual either. To have to say 'I love you' would break my teeth... I don't want to be loved."